For overall system performance we use PCMark Vantage. This is run in both x86 and x64 mode to give the best indication of performance.

The ASUS Crosshair IV Formula combined with the Phenom II X6 and a HS 5870 does a pretty good job of keeping up with other higher priced systems. It still cannot top the upper end from Intel, but then again, it costs hundreds less and still offers good performance.

For synthetic gaming tests we used the industry standard and overlockers bragging tool 3DMark Vantage. This is a test that strives to mimic the impact modern games have on a system. Futuremark went a long way to change from the early days of graphics driven tests to a broader approach including physics, AI and more advanced graphics simulations.

3DMark Vantage uses the DX10 API in addition to having support for PhysX. As we are no longer using an NVIDIA GPU for testing (at least until we can get a GTX 4xx card) you will only see the CPU based PhysX results in the scores. For testing we use the Performance test run.

At stock speeds the Crosshair IV Formula combined with the Radeon HD 5870 comes out on top of the Core i5 750s. It still lags behind the 8 thread Xeon, but is also much less expensive. When we overclocked the CPUs the Crosshair still managed a good showing, but fell behind a couple of the P55 boards as well.

Cinebench is a synthetic rendering tool developed by Maxon. Maxon is the same company that developed Cinema4D, another industry leading 3D Animation application. Cinebench R11.5 tests your systems ability to render across a single and multiple CPU cores. It also tests your systems ability to process OpenGL information.

Well, color me impressed here. The Crosshair IV Formula comes out pretty good with this test. We see excellent scores here, even topping the 8-thread Xeon equipped P7P55 WS Super Computer by a small margin.

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